“Every year around Christmastime, PNC Financial Services Group puts together an assessment of the real dollar cost of purchasing the gifts described in the Twelve Days of Christmas.  You know, 12 drummers drumming, 11 pipers piping, 10 lords a-leaping, 9 ladies dancing, 8 maids a-milking, 7 swans a-swimming, 6 geese a-laying, 5 golden rings, 4 calling birds, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

The company has held its survey for 22 consecutive years, and found that, each year, the increasing costs of buying all of those gifts for your true love closely follow the annual rate of inflation.

 

This year, the cost of purchasing all of those items would total $18,920, an increase of 3.1 percent from 2005.

 

The biggest increase among items in the inventory comes in the cost of the pear tree – up 84 percent from $89.99 to $129.99.  The partridge remained the cheapest purchase, at $15.  Seven swans proved to be a big ticket item, costing $4200.

 

The best news in the reports revolved around the increase in wages for skilled workers, those being the drummers and pipers, who earned 3.4 percent more than last year, the leaping lords, who brought home a three percent pay raise, and the ladies dancing, who would see a four percent increase in their wages, according to the Philadelphia Dance Company.

 

I imagine things like video games and DVD movies will be in greater demand this year than partridges and pear trees.  It is, of course, as good a time as any to remind parents about the ratings guides available from the Federal Communications Commission for video games and movies, which usually can be found at retailers who sell these popular gifts.

 

Setting all of those facts aside, the average American will spend an estimated $800 on Christmas gifts this year.  However, those gifts will not be the most important ones; that figure masks the more important gifts of the season.  At the end of the day, we cannot measure the love of our families or the warmth of our friends in dollars and cents. 

 

Just as warming is a gift, even an anonymous one, to a family in need this holiday season.  Places of worship, media outlets, and public institutions throughout Southern Missouri will be partnering together to collect cold-weather clothes for the homeless, organizing food drives and soup kitchens for the hungry, and accepting donations of toys for girls and boys who would otherwise find little under the Christmas tree.

 

As for me, I would simply settle for having the entire family gathered around the same table for the holiday.  And if we must get one another something for under the Christmas tree, this year we are making charitable donations in each others’ names.  It’s just something a little different to emphasize how much we appreciate one another and how fortunate we will be to gather together this year.”